More than Meets the Eye (IDW ongoing comic)

[Sparky Prime]

To me, as I said, the first way seems to me to be a cheat and really a cheap trick while the second is not.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Certainly, with situations like Thundercracker while the intent is to give the impression he was killed, but leave it so ambiguous we really don't know, while others use a cheap trick to bring a character back from certain death.

[Dominic]

On the other hand, go back to Thundercracker being shot by Skywarp. We don't see what happens to Thundercracker at all. We're left to assume he's been killed, or not, based on context and our own reading of the sequence.

Dude, the Thundercracker thing was pure fucking bullshit. There was only one sensible way to read that sequence unless you are going to engage in idiotic faux-intellectual sophistry. I could almost buy into Thundercracker surviving a face shot (as there are so many other examples of TFs surviving similar trauma). But, the back-written back-shot was.....poorly done. (And, I am saying that as somebody who not only liked Costa's run on the book, but liked what Costa did with Thundercracker.)

The Ironhide thing was not a cheat. Costa killed Ironhide with the intention of bringing him back in the damned mini-series. A cheat would be killing the character off and intending to keep them dead only to them back-write who they really survived their apparent. death (as was objectively the case with Thundercracker).


Dom
-and being a big deal in MTMTE does not make Rewind important.

[Shockwave]

I could almost buy into Thundercracker surviving a face shot (as there are so many other examples of TFs surviving similar trauma).

Dom
-and being a big deal in MTMTE does not make Rewind important.

And that pretty much nullifies your argument right there.

It does make Rewind important if it's in a discussion about the comic in which he's a big deal.

[Sparky Prime]

Dude, the Thundercracker thing was pure fucking bullshit. There was only one sensible way to read that sequence unless you are going to engage in idiotic faux-intellectual sophistry.

How is there "only one sensible way to read that sequence" when that sequence was purposefully ambiguous in the first place? They don't show what actually happened, so there is a number of sensible ways someone could read that. Especially for a comic book.

-and being a big deal in MTMTE does not make Rewind important.

It does for MTMTE's story.

[Onslaught Six]

Rewind was an important character. Of the Lost Light's 200+ members (allegedly--maybe Roberts and Barber have a manifest, but I doubt it), there are maybe a dozen who are important characters, and have shown up repeatedly. Rodimus, Magnus, Swerve, Whirl, Chromedome, Rewind, Tailgate, Rung, Drift, Ratchet, and Cyclonus, all in no particular order, are who I'd say are the important characters in this book. (I am pretty sure the end of the book agrees with me.)

Even the fucking hi-then-die characters in this book are important. Shock and Ore are still being mentioned a full 14, 15 issues after their deaths.

[Dominic]

How is there "only one sensible way to read that sequence" when that sequence was purposefully ambiguous in the first place? They don't show what actually happened, so there is a number of sensible ways someone could read that. Especially for a comic book.

Skywarp is shown pointing his gun directly at Thundercracker's face. Thundercracker is shown trying to talk Skywarp down. While Thundercracker tries to stammer out a response (rather than trying to move away), Skywarp fires his gun. Nothing in the panels or the pacing of the scene indicates that Thundercracker and Skywarp moved away from each other before Skywarp shot Thundercracker.

Not showing Thundercracker's face getting blown off was likely more a stylistic decision than a question of deliberate ambiguity. People searching for and creating that kind of ambiguity is exactly the kind of fuck-wittery that put me out of English as a discipline. ("I am going to assume this far out thing happened despite everything in the story indicating otherwise, and when the logical conclusion is pointed out i will dispute its logic!")



On another note, I just realized something: Shockwave was Jhiaxus' student before being rebuilt as the one-eyed monster we all know and love. Part of me wonders if the emotionally charged and morally righteous Senator could have eventually become more of a monster than the Decepticon he ended up being rebuilt as. If nothing else, he showed admiration for Nove Prime and the rest of the Ark's crew, many of whom became monsters despite having intentions. (I am also not expecting anything to come of this in MTMTE. it is just a radnom thought.)

[Sparky Prime]

Not showing Thundercracker's face getting blown off was likely more a stylistic decision than a question of deliberate ambiguity. People searching for and creating that kind of ambiguity is exactly the kind of fuck-wittery that put me out of English as a discipline. ("I am going to assume this far out thing happened despite everything in the story indicating otherwise, and when the logical conclusion is pointed out i will dispute its logic!")

There is no need to search for or create any kind of ambiguity when the scene is so deliberate about not actually showing Thundercracker take the hit. That's a pretty common storytelling technique itself, to set something up where the outcome seems certain, but by not actually showing the final outcome of those events, it leaves room for interpretation for something else to happen in that split second. To assume there is only one way to read that is, frankly, just arrogant. And there is certainly nothing far out about Thundercracker being able to move a little bit in that split-second Skywarp took the shot so that he wouldn't be hit in the head. It is also worth noting here, that the Ongoing doesn't actually show where Thundercracker was hit either. They show Skywarp fire, and the next panel is just Thundercracker falling out of the sky with several parts of him damaged.

[Shockwave]

And there is certainly nothing far out about Thundercracker being able to move a little bit in that split-second Skywarp took the shot so that he wouldn't be hit in the head.

There is this but I would actually go one step further and say that we don't even have to assum he moved at all given that IDW had already firmly established that damage to the head of Transformer, even seemingly severe damage is not a life threatening injury. They had already established that with both Megatron and Sunstreaker.

[Sparky Prime]

There is this but I would actually go one step further and say that we don't even have to assum he moved at all given that IDW had already firmly established that damage to the head of Transformer, even seemingly severe damage is not a life threatening injury. They had already established that with both Megatron and Sunstreaker.

And since then with Soundwave and Rung.

[Dominic]

The intent of the scene was pretty clear, unless of course we are looking for ambiguity so we can be part of the story....or a later writer is looking for something/anything to justify a back-write.

There is this but I would actually go one step further and say that we don't even have to assum he moved at all given that IDW had already firmly established that damage to the head of Transformer, even seemingly severe damage is not a life threatening injury. They had already established that with both Megatron and Sunstreaker.

At the time, Megatron and Sunstreaker were the only characters to have that kind of "serious head trauma". But, even so, there were differences. Sunstreaker's trauma was, for lack of a better way to put it, "surgical". And, the impression I got from the Megatron scenario was that Megatron was lucky to be alive at all and likely "should" have died.




Dom